Bergesen's 2nd Start

Following his second
Spring Training start, Brad Bergesen acknowledged he isn’t quite where
he needs to be, but he’s getting closer with each successive outing.

Bergesen tossed 2 2/3 innings Monday afternoon, holding the
Red Sox to two runs -both courtesy of David Ortiz’s homer – on five hits. He
also had a walk and a strikeout and reported to be pain-free, both in his right
shoulder and his left shin.

After his season was cut short when he was struck with a
line drive on July 30 of last year, Bergesen has been slowed this spring by a
strained right shoulder capsule suffered while filming a team commercial in
December.

He allowed two runs on three hits over 1 1/3 innings in his
debut Wednesday night, and acknowledged that it’s taking some time to get completely
in sync back on the mound.

“[Getting that feeling back] that’s a big part of it,”
Bergesen said. “But I did have a game plan going into [Monday’s start]. I wanted
to try to lower the strike zone, throw as many strikes as a I could, get ahead
of guys. And I thought I did a better job of that today. But still, too many
hitters I am falling behind.”

Bergesen tossed 27 of his 41 pitches for strikes and said
the slider he hung to Ortiz was the worst pitch he threw all afternoon. The Red
Sox slugger was 1-for-19 prior to that.

Cla Meredith, who hasn’t allowed a guy on base this spring,
got the final out of the third inning, with Chris Tillman opening the fourth.
Meredith walked by as the reporters were interviewing Bergesen and joked that
he’d be waiting at his locker should the media need to talk about his lengthy
performance. He only needed one pitch to retired Adrian Beltre on a groundout to second.

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